Jack Hughes et al [2011] - Josh 110

Careful and precise measurements by Jack Hughes here,  Jun 18, 2011 at 10:57 AM 

Cartoons by Josh approximately here

Comments

[golf charley]

BBD, wasn't it worth it for this cartoon?!

[Don Pablo de la Sierra]

Iconic. This cartoon is a thousand times more effective in countering the rhetoric from the Alarmists than all the scientific reasoning you can argue.

[James P]

Jack Huges? Typo, I know, but these things stick! :-)

(We had a lady called Hughes at one of my places of work, and she made the same mistake. Unfortunately, it fitted...)

[kim]

Paddling the salt marsh,
Diving for certain shaped worms.
Headline: Mann Jumps Duck!
=================

[JPeden]

Rejoice, Warmista, even within your woes! It seems that "it's still better to be a duck half-sunk, than to have never been a duck at all!"

[Josh]

James, thank you! Fixed.

Kim, lovely.

[Brent Hargreaves]

Further on the subject of Global Warming comedy, I see that watermelons are now exploding:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/17/exploding-watermelons-chinese-farming

Is this the Warmistas' comeuppance for the infamous 10:10 video?

[James P]

I realise now that one my few remaining ambitions is to inspire one of Josh's cartoons...

[Josh]

James, I am sure you have already ;-)

[Anoneumouse]

Class (sic)

[View from the Solent]

This is apt ..... http://notrickszone.com/2011/06/23/leading-german-meteorologist-michael-manns-sea-level-story-a-quack/

[Anoneumouse]

If you are not listening to the Radio 4 Now show at the moment then anybody who would like to listen to the piss being ripped out of Prof Brain Cox should listen to the repeat tomorrow lunchtime.

It's amazing

[Shub]

Anonemouse,
Could you let us know what's going on? For instance, I cannot access the BBC website and listen to full programs.

[Pete H]

Shub. Trying to help you out with BBC access through the email facility on your Wordpress but every-time I click to email you it messes up and I end up with half a .jpg! If you can get Bish to give you my email or give me a throw away hotmail etc your problems will be over

[BBD]

golf charley

Yes indeed. Josh has brilliantly captured the essence of a complex and difficult paper in a single image. The man's an artist.

In an alternative universe I emailed Church and White about this, and they pointed out that the duck was floating, which they claim invalidates this hypothesis ;-)

[John Silver]

Shub:
BBC Radio is available abroad (but not TV) Here they are on BBC Radio 4 Extra:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011vjhr
But you have to wait to next Friday for this weeks program from BBC Radio 4.

[Varco]

Thank you Josh.

[simpleseekeraftertruth]

Hmmm. If the seas are rising due to meltwater the salinity is reducing. Therefore ducks would float lower in the water. Reportedly they are not. Therefore any rise recorded is not due to meltwater. QED

[BBD]

SSAT

Does your analysis incorporate glacial isostatic adjustments?

[Dave Bob]

Well-deserved immortality for Mr. Hughes. I chortled all the way home after reading his quote.

Also, while the comments on isostatic adjustments, salinity etc. are apropos, another issue must be accounted for in predicting changes in DBSL (duck-based sea level)--the effect of global warming on duck density:

Will warmer temps cause ducks to grow less fluffy down?

Will the AGW-induced reduction in duck food lead to thinner fat layers?

Will the additional exercise required for survival (fleeing the inevitable floods and collapsing icesheets, migrating farther as their habitat disappears overnight) make for leaner, more well-muscled ducks?

I haven't scanned the ornithological literature recently, so it's quite possible that generous grants have already been disbursed to study these critical questions.

[golf charley]

The RSPB remain concerned about ducks drowning due to sea level rise

[Shub]

Pete,
My email is nigguraths - at - yahoo.com

[Dreadnought]

Mind me platypus duck, Bill.

"The duck-billed platypus, one of Australia's most bizarre and beloved animals, is the latest native species to come under threat from climate change, scientists have warned."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/8596068/Duck-billed-platypus-at-risk-from-climate-change.html

[Nick R]

The Now Show with the Prof Brain Cox sketch can be heard at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qgt7

Select 'Listen Now' for Series 34 Episode 3 & fast forward to 11mins 30secs

Amazing!

[Gary Turner]

Reminds me of the Cajun story told by Justin Wilson. A boy was sitting beside a bayou when a man came along and asked whether the water was too deep to wade across. The boy replied that it wasn't deep at all. Well, the man waded into the water and promptly slipped on the steep sides of the bayou and was soon in over his head. Splashing and sputtering, he made his way back onto the bank. With a face red with rage, he turned to the boy, "You told me it wasn't deep here."

The boy replied, "I didn't t'ink it was. Not more dan half a hour ago a little duck went walkin' by and de water only came half way up his body, and you know dem ducks ain't got legs but fo' or t'ree inches long."

cheers,

gary

[Roger Carr]

Thanks, Josh... sweet!

[Jack Hughes]

I'm enjoying my 15 minutes. Thanks, Josh and thanks, Bish.

Oddly, the duck analogy works well for coral atolls. The sea can rise or fall and the top of the island is only ever a few feet above it.

[Roger Carr]

Jack Hughes: "Oddly, the duck analogy works well for coral atolls."

And we thought you'd made the whole thing up, Jack...

[simpleseekeraftertruth]

BBD,

Salinity: 1970 to 2010 Anomaly Time Series at standard depths: 0m, 10m, 20m, 30m, 50m, 75m, 100m, 150m, 200m, 250m

Link: http://www.ims.uaf.edu/gak1/

Why make it complicated?

[Geoff Sherrington]

Gary Turner. Similar logic. Two "bl...." girls saw each other on opposite banks of a stream. Girl A asked "How do I get to the other side?" Girl B replied "Duh. You ARE on the other side."

Jack Hughes, you made one of the best blog comments for years. Thank to you & Josh.

[BBD]

SSAT

;-)

And you are of course right. The salinity would affect the degree of submersion of the duck. Just as MSL would affect the the height of the duck relative to the datum.

It's a proxy!

[James P]

I look forward to the earnest (and humourless) intervention of a warmist who wants to explain the flaws in duck-based tide gauging. I can then remind them of their insistence not long ago that melting arctic ice would soon submerge us all...

[BBD]

James P

Resounding silence, so let me have a go (sarc goggles on):

The eustatic and thermosteric components of MSL change may be better constrained by examining both the impact of salinity on buoyancy (the half-way up a duck effect) and the absolute position of the duck relative to the datum.

Changes in salinity derived from duck buoyancy shifts provide a mechanism for improving the current understanding of the relative contribution of ice mass balance loss and the consequent freshening of the oceans and the thermosteric response of the major ocean basins to anthropogenic forcing.

We find the 'floating duck' hypothesis presented in Hughes et al. (2011) to be incomplete. The authors' conclusion does not take account of the full range of observations, specifically omitting the divergence from the datum exhibited by their choice of a free-floating proxy.

While this effectively invalidates the conclusions of Hughes et al. regarding the use of ducks as proxies for relative and mean sea level change, the study illustrates the potential for the half-way up a duck approach to improve our understanding of the rate and implications of cryospheric shrinkage on MSL over coming decades.